IT'S BETTER THAN DRINKIN' ALONE: The Official ILM Track-by-Track BILLY JOEL Listening Thread

I was just talking abt this yrsterday w MrVeg

at first it just sounds like “old guy all bunged up about new music” genre that i kinda hate...
but: he’s not that old!
and: he embraced the new style ~for this album~
and: it’s also kind of about...cars? and...fashion? and stereos?
and: quite a few the references are jazz-age which..huh?
the last point especially makes me wonder if he was trying to do a modern take on “anything goes” with the lyrics? idk

I mostly like it bcz it was my Mum’s favorite when I was little

i love when the sax break stops & he goes into the final verse with that long “Ooooooooooooooooohhhhhhooooooooo”

It's one of his more new wave songs! The thumping guitar and bass in the verses reminded me of rubber bands when I was a kid.

I like his outfit for this. It was a good time for normie new wave fashion. Reminds me of
https://i.pinimg.com/236x/b4/39/cd/b439cdca5e4d6d6e32db45866433af6a.jpg

re: his age, yeah! He was 30 when he recorded this, which doesn't seem that old to me. Though I guess how you wear 30 can make you seem either legit or poseur in the eyes of 17 - Sting, just a year or two younger than Billy, managed to get away with it (albeit with some protesting too much re: being "Born in the Fifties").

The jazz age thing is interesting and makes me think of Taco's "Puttin' on the Ritz." Joel conceives of himself as a songwriter more than an interpreter but I kinda feel like he shoulda thrown a synthed-up, wirey take on a Gershwin tune on this album.

then again, it also might just be that his go-to bag is 100% full of old-man references

well, I think even a non-fan could agree that Joel was a diligent student of music history. dude had clearly listened to a lot of old records. indeed, possibly to a fault. cf. all the talk of him biting the steez of old doowop and r&b records.

He's always seemed like an old man to me. The cynicism, the pastiches.

This song is awesome btw - hearing it a hundred times has not made it lose any luster for me. The beginning, just hitting on one bass note, is a really cool way to start a song

yeah it’s def a rocker for me

"White Baby Boomer mansplains rock 'n' roll" is definitely one of the worst lyrical genres ever, but (as some have pointed out) Billy's entry is less cranky than bullshit like Bob Seger's "Old Time Rock N Roll" and Bryan Adams' "Kids Wanna Rock." The whole "call it what you like, it's all rock and roll, maaan" strikes me as generous and inclusive--and while I wouldn't press the issue too hard, the intrinsic queerness of New Wave says something nice about Billy's refusal to give this music the knee-jerk dismissal that many of his peers were pushing at the time.

That said, as a song...blah.

(also, since I just realized that I missed "Don't Axe Me Why" yesterday--I like his sharp lyrical turns of phrase much better than the tune. Some days that's enough for me, and others I need something more muscular, even from Billy.)

I like Dont Ask Me Why okay but it strays into annoying jingle territory for me, it’s a bit annoying/earwormy

"White Baby Boomer mansplains rock 'n' roll" is definitely one of the worst lyrical genres ever, but (as some have pointed out) Billy's entry is less cranky than bullshit like Bob Seger's "Old Time Rock N Roll" and Bryan Adams' "Kids Wanna Rock." The whole "call it what you like, it's all rock and roll, maaan" strikes me as generous and inclusive--and while I wouldn't press the issue too hard, the intrinsic queerness of New Wave says something nice about Billy's refusal to give this music the knee-jerk dismissal that many of his peers were pushing at the time.

That said, as a song...blah.

― the general theme of STUFF (cryptosicko), Sunday, September 24, 2017

otm on every point

otm x 1000 on the generosity and inclusiveness. i'm not even sure this song is *about* new wave or rock and roll. it's more about fashion, about the idea that you've always got to be throwing out what's old and buying what's new regardless of what you like. the idea that you have to always race to keep up. none of the verses is about music. they are, in order, about clothes, cars, clothes again and friends/cliques. i hear the jazz-age references as billy's way of saying this isn't a new concept. there are always new waves and there are always people feeling left behind and you '60s hippies were just as guilty of that as these skinny-tie kids.

that said, i've never loved this song either. but listening to it now, i think the stripped-down production is pretty great.

i love when the sax break stops & he goes into the final verse with that long “Ooooooooooooooooohhhhhhooooooooo”

me too.

Before I actually had the album and the lyric sheet, I experienced one of my few true mondegreens by hearing "You can't get the sound from a story in a magazine/aimed at your average teen" as "You can't get the sound from a story in a magazine/Hey, that's your average teen" which made no sense at all even to an 11 year old.

that’s what i heard too!

https://68.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lrt60ip38n1qf6l2ko1_500.png

https://youtu.be/_v7CPzuGwRA

I think I started from something like "even if you're ever esteem" or god knows what string of syllables and words. "Beau Brummel" was "forerunner" or "full runner" iirc.

I mean Billy was right too in a lot of ways, esp. because I'm gonna guess the bands that were probably most up his alley were (given their prominence in NYC & general pop instincts) Ramones and Blondie, both who were 50s and girl group influenced, so it was actually still rock n roll to them (and me and Billy)

Yes, it is weird that he takes a swig of beer.

I am a major New Wave fanboi but even I am aware that New Wave was largely just rock with sillier haircuts.

"Beau Brummel" was "forerunner" or "full runner" iirc.

Yes!

"bold runner" is sounding right to me suddenly...

gotta say as far as this kind of thing goes, billy's assessment of the musical situation rings much truer and more optimistic than huey lewis's desperate "the heart of rock and roll is still beatin'!"

ugggh fuck that song forever...it’s just a catalogue of cheap pops to get applause from every fkn city in the country

Billy the Peacemaker, bridging Sha Na Na and The Knack.

sha na nack-ack-ack

Software be like pic.twitter.com/LH5StC6NCn

— Biappi (@Biappi) September 25, 2017

I feel like some 90s band did a thing where they encouraged everybody in the audience to bring a boom box with their record in it, and all press play at about the same time. Flaming Lips?

The Lips did release the 4cd Zaireeka, where all cdss were meant to be played simultaneously.

I am not sure whether or not I want to know what 12 Billy Joel songs played simultaneously sounds like.

Well TOO BAD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcvVPuJVKcs

IT'S BETTER THAN ONE HIT ALONE

Okay wow, thanks Phil. Strangely hypnotic. Mostly major-key/mid-tempo mush for a while - "Honesty" surprisingly prominent.

As one might expect, after four minutes you can hear more specificity. Oh, there's "Captain Jack." For a while it seems like it's just "New York State of Mind" and "Pyanno Man" mashed together, but "Captain Jack" isn't nearly over yet.

This weird motif of Billy Joel releases getting screwed up by random engineers is slightly amusing.

sounds like a sgt. pepper/magical mystery tour outtake.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhIx7EaTido

All For Leyna, an attempt to capture the intensities and agonies of teenage love, closes the hit-packed first side of Glass Houses. In a couple of overseas markets, it was the first single off the record, making it to #40 in the UK and #16 in Spain. The video features a peek at Billy's synth rig, and some truly alarming stare-down work.

https://img.discogs.com/SaANVGEpmAYbiX1pzwJ6jdBq8Sw=/fit-in/378x378/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-4388222-1365151106-4451.jpeg.jpg

^^ Ooh - I love the idea of leather-jacket Billy Joel throwing a rock at Piano Man.

Oberheim. That's it.

this inspired me to make my first gif #alwayslearning

https://media.giphy.com/media/6SyzdGgKcpHtm/giphy.gif

I think this was the first song I ever heard where the music stopped when the singer said "stop."

that part would make a gif almost as great as ums's

hahahaha ums

this was the first song I ever heard where the music stopped when the singer said "stop."

HMMM I SMELL A LIST THREAD, LADS

I think for me it was James Taylor's version of "How Sweet it Is."

There is also a Cure remix - I think it is Antidote Megamix - during "A Forest," when the lyric goes "Suddenly I stop" and Robert's guitar cuts out. We thought that was A+ clever, back in the day.

Songs that actually, like, stop when the singer says 'stop.'

thank u for that gif ums

Shoulda learned by now that every "that should be a thread" thread has already been made. My bad, carry on.

The unquestionable highlight of this song is dramatic way he hits the word ROCKS in the second verse's laboured beach metaphor.

LUUUUVVVVVVVVV all for leyna. the apex of bubblegum billy. that indelible chorus. the teen desperation in his voice. but mostly that electric piano. five songs into the album and this is the first full-on piano song, and it sounds like nothing he's done before. it sounds like a dude in red leather pants and a skinny tie lost in the first blush of lust, obsession and music, who has an electric piano in his bedroom and wouldn't know hoaw to play a billy joel arpeggio if you spotted him the 1st, 3rd, 5th and 7th. he just knows catchy. he also, to be fair, may know toto's "hold the line," jefferson starship's "jane," aldo nova's "fantasy" and a few other bang-on-the-electric-piano rock classics of the era, as well as several buggles songs as noted by doctor c above. (or maybe not "fantasy," since that won't come out for two more years.) everyone in the band, guitar, drums, everybody, steps on the huge piece of bubblegum billy has left for them and revels in the stickiness.

also: as obsessed-boys-who-blame-everything-on-the-girl songs go, i appreciate that billy spends his days sitting in his room bugging his dad instead of bugging/stalking the girl. maybe he will one day realize he is in fact wasting his time waiting for leyna.

also also: it ends with a very non-bubblegummy 50-ish seconds of padding.

also also also: i was unaware there were people named leyna before i heard this song.

Also in the near-simultaneous-discovery category: this week, one thing I'm really hearing in this album (maybe moreso on a couple of side B tracks) is the synthesis of 70s pop-rock and new wave that Hall & Oates arrived at on Voices, recorded in and released right around the same time as Glass Houses. Obviously theirs has more soul in the mix, but I can kinda hear each act comfortably covering most of the tracks on the other's album.

Just noticed how SHOCK, ROCKS and STOP all appear in the same place and have the same vowel sound.

For me, it's all the suicidal pangs between the lines that makes this song a little "scary" for me. Electrocution. Drowning. Living it all/Giving it all. Who knows what the hell he's doing in that dark bedroom of his.

Well, and this. This little movement also makes it scary.

https://gifs.com/embed/billy-joel-all-for-leyna-qjwNjy